The turning-point from the inventive to the industrial side of the development was reached about the year 1800. Timekeeping has always been a part of history, and history a part of timekeeping, and this opening of the nineteenth century was a period when history itself was changing, for the progress of civilization is like a journey over a mountain road; one must needs turn occasionally or one can rise no higher. The American Revolution had ended but a few years before, and the thinly settled states were trying the strange experiment of having the people govern themselves without a king. In the old world, the people of France had suddenly risen up and seized the power from their king, and a bloody struggle had ensued in which many of the old nobility had been beheaded. In England, the power of the throne was growing less and the power of the people greater. In fact, the whole world was becoming more and more filled with democratic ideas and ideals than ever before.
Now, this same democratic idea that set up republics was getting ready to put a watch into every man's pocket. At first, everyone had told the time for himself, and had told it badly. Now, after thousands of years, it had come about that a few had the means of telling time accurately. The great inventors mentioned in the last few chapters had contributed one idea after another, until, among them all they had worked out clocks and watches that would keep correct time. But these timepieces were not yet convenient in form, and they certainly were not yet convenient in price for the average man. They still were made by hand in small quantities, and such a condition would have to be changed before it would be possible for everyone to tell the time and to tell it well.
Naturally, the industrial and business development of watchmaking began long before 1800, long before, indeed, the time at which the inventions were all complete. For centuries the two sides of the story, the inventive and the industrial, had progressed side by side, but for the sake of clearness, we have described the inventions first. Now we must glance back again to the time of Shakespeare, when the period of modern inventions was just beginning, in order to see how the business side of watchmaking started upon its growth.
Four nations have been concerned in this development—England, France, Switzerland, and the United States. The English worked in one way; the French worked in another; the Swiss, in still another; while the Americans took up the final organization of the work in a manner that was thoroughly typical of their peculiar genius.
The mechanical improvements and inventions were mostly made, as we know, by the English. But for the beginnings of the watch industry in England one must go back to a time before the days of Hooke and Huyghens, to the year 1627, the year of incorporation of the Worshipful Clock-makers, Company. Imagine such a name being chosen to-day! The Worshipful Clock-makers' Company was the original trade-organization of the business in England. It was not at all like our modern companies but was one of those great trade "guilds" which played such an important part in the development of European industry.
London about 1600
